Bird Bones and Fossilized Memories
by Void.of.the.Apocalypse
Summary: "You are like a bird." Someone had once said. "Why?" She had asked with the tilt of her head. "Even if your wings may be broken, you still have the desire to fly." She didn't answer after that.
1. Hatching a New Life

(Minor edit)

Snakes were one of the many creatures who caused superstition within the human race. They were mostly slimy, evil devils not to mess with, but were also something that were worshiped within a few cultures.

They - along with multiple other animals - were unwillingly thrown into a world where humans ruled and killed what was different than them and what they feared. Less than half of the snake population held fatal venom, but humans don't like being threatened, and mostly are the cause of the extinction of multiple animals.

But… to her it didn't matter, after all, and it wasn't like that she was trying to focus on trying to pretend that she wasn't just bitten by a Taipan, and currently had no clue as to where the hell she was, but knew that she should have stayed near the group, instead of fawning over the koala that she had spotted.

* * *

Death was different than she originally thought, it hurt like a motherfucker, and she had the constant(and uncomfortable) feeling that there was something pressing up against her on all of her sides. She wasn't claustrophobic, she just didn't like how human it felt, like skin that she doesn't want to feel.

But, then again, it was warm and quiet - inviting, even. Wasn't this what she wanted? To be comfortable and warm and feeling accepted? She wasn't used to this feeling, but she almost liked it, wished it would last forever, wanted it last and cover up all of those times she was stupidly called 'fat' or 'stupid' or 'whore' or 'unwanted'.

She pushed the thoughts out of her mind, and dreamt of a life she knew she wouldn't ever get, but what was stopping her? Sure, her depression hurt like a mothefucker, but she could deal with the headaches, and she knew that it was slowly leaving, considering how often she got them and how bad it got. She wasn't someone to just die like a fly to a frog, she would rather be the squirrel to the young falcon, at least she would get a fight in the end.

She thought that it was cute how she was obsessed with birds, but yet she was taken out by a land-dwelling creature(she knew that birds don't have much of a kill count, but she was in a state where she thought of everything and nothing, and the lines were very fine). She didn't have anything wrong against snakes, she did like them, but she still loved avions better than serpentes.

The pressure around her increased, and she remembered her friends; the ones who would hug so hard she would not have been surprised if she had broken a few bones. She wouldn't say she would be a hypocrite, but at least her hugs weren't so dangerous. The pressure gripped around her, and she relished it, taking in the warmth and love.

If she had taken a friend with her, she might still be alive, and probably have finished culinary school, and opened a small pastry shoppe, but what did it matter when there was nothing to use and sharpen it? Well, she always did have an amazingly vivid imagination, and she did often take long breaks with her martial arts, and practiced them in her head. Sure, it wasn't good for muscle memory, but it was better to remember than to forget, right? She could remember wielding a gong dao, or a pudao, or a spear, or a katana or even some daggers. She enjoyed the martial arts, but she sort of needed a job to get through life, so she decided to become a pastry chef, at least she was decent in the kitchen to begin with. With a sugar tooth as wild as hers, she was quite glad that she learned to take care of that tooth without killing herself with a fuckton of sugar and calories and fat.

* * *

Vision blurred, colors flying everywhere, flashes of blue and tan and red, and intense crying. That is what she saw; that is what she heard. But what she didn't want to feel was the freezing cold air, the sharp tang of sterile everything and sweat, cold air meeting lungs, and burning rubber swarming her body like waxing her entire body in the middle of a frozen tundra night. The cold stung her skin and lungs, and the rubber literally rubbed her the wrong way.

And that lasted for what felt like forever, but in the end she heard two words - two words in a foreign language.

"Asuka."

And with a haunted cry, Enkosugi Asuka was born. Born on the thirteenth of January, on a cold winter night.

* * *

She was… scared, admittedly. She died. She was supposed to be dead. But… what were those wonderful sounds? What was that warmth? How could she still feel hunger? Why could she hear infants crying? Why was everything so muted?

She wasn't one to question everything much(or at all), but it was becoming a nuisance. She wanted to sleep, and she couldn't get it with the loud(but muted) noises coming from every direction at all times of the day.

To her; days have passed.

But in reality; her first four months have already gone.

* * *

A hand enters her vision, and she swipes at the intruding object, spitting and growls at the brightly colored child's toy. The hand disappears into the blur of colors that mostly consisted of green and brown, but to only come back with another brightly colored toy.

She was incredibly pissed after she realized what happened. She was reincarnated. Fucking reincarnated. She hated the waking world, sleeping almost all the time. She never liked the food, refusing to eat until she was force-fed. She never really liked anything, almost everything. Almost. Not her brother. Not her twin. Not Rinji. Rinji was her twin, they were together since they were conceived.

And she made hell a living, breathing creature if she was taken away from him.

She did not like being away from him.

But it only got worse when he got sick. Very, very sick.

They wouldn't let her near him. They wouldn't let her be with him. She made sure all of hell would pay. She wouldn't eat, she wouldn't sleep, she wouldn't stop crying(if it wasn't that, it was ignoring everything), and she wouldn't let anyone touch her.

The pale hand came back again with a half of a ball of dango in its palm, and she bared her teeth(gums) at it, drooling a little.

She was sure she didn't want to be away from her other half.

* * *

She whines in her brown crib, hands reaching up to attempt at grasping the brightly colored objects above her, circling in a lazy manner. Days have passed for her, and she is slightly sad that she cannot see her brother. With a tired sigh, she whines a little louder, hoping to catch the attention of someone. Someone grabs her, palely tanned hands that looked somewhat orange picked her up, cradling her against large breasts that she wished weren't so suffocating. Cooing sounds came from the woman as she softly bounces the reincarnated infant.

She whines again, and this time she realizes she was being taken somewhere else, into another room. Whining, she gripped at the woman's breasts, tugging at the clothing blindly. The woman chuckles, and opens a door, and softly closing it behind her. More movements happens, and she is placed inside a crib with another infant in it. The infant was smaller than her, but she knew who it was. It was her twin, Rinji. She cries in delight, kicking her legs out in the only manner she could perform. She could hear laughter, and giggles.

* * *

Well, I don't know what happened. It started out as a small drabble on tumblr, and now it's turned to this. Well, this is something that I enjoyed, took me a few days to make this, and I'm sure I already have the entire story planned out.

What do you think of it? Please leave a review on what could be fixed or what you loved about this!

Rinji is means peaceful forest(at least in the baby book I found), and Enkosugi is actually a Japanese cedar. Asuka has a few meanings, but the one I'm using is asu(飛)(to fly) and ka(鳥)(bird).


	2. First Feather - Love and Epiphany

_(Minor edit)_

Asuka giggles again, tossing the toy to her brother. She didn't exactly like where she was, learning a new language was hard, but she didn't have much of a choice. Giggling again, she cooes in joy, bringing her brother in for a hug. Large feet enters her vision, and Asuka tilts her head up to look at the giant. It was her mother, the one who her brother resembles a lot. Brown hair, hazel eyes, pale orange skin.

The woman says something, and Asuka picks up the word she thought of as 'good' and her brother's name 'Rinji', and something about 'happiness'.

Asuka giggles again, and crawls to her mother. Said woman picks her up, gently placing the child on her hip. Asuka grabs the long brown hair her mother has, and the two of them giggle at the action.

* * *

The mother says something, and cooes at the two children in front of her, as if to repeat the word she desires them to say. They both repeat the word, and Asuka internally hopes that her mother wasn't teaching them some inappropriate word. She, of course, knew that someone like her mother wouldn't do it, but sometimes she got paranoid. No one could blame her, right? She was reincarnated, something that was usually dealt with in religions and such, not by someone who had a relatively hard time to trust things and easily got paranoid and had a considerably amount of reasons why she couldn't trust some people she befriended.

Obviously it was the paranoia, but she usually subdued it until she thought the situation was important enough to do so(it led to many painful demises of many close relationships, also a factor as to why she never had any close, intimate relationships with almost everyone she knew). Asuka giggles loudly, and screeches out the word her mother was repeating. The small group laughs, and Asuka grins. Maybe - just maybe - she could have the family she never had.

* * *

"Up, up!" The twins cry out, pestering their father, who had faded red hair and black eyes, "Up, up!"

The man laughs quietly, although it was more of a chuckle, and replies. Asuka could only make out some words that pointed out he'd do it some other time, but the twins cheers 'Up, up!' again, but he rejects them again. Asuka felt something was wrong, that he wasn't really in the mood, so she turns to her brother and babbles some nonsense to him, rehearsing some English words, and drags him off to some other place to leave their father alone.

Asuka snuck a glance at her father, and saw him sag his shoulders. But was it in relief or something else?

Turning back to Rinji, she babbled again, and they both started to tossing random toys around and pointing to it.

* * *

Asuka hums, hands colored with paint. Rinji was sitting behind her, doing his own thing. She giggles, her hands creating a shaky portrait of something that she was trying to remember. She remembers a lot, actually, and she thinks that maybe once she's older they'll fade, but what's stopping her from trying to remember? With another giggle, she adds on some beige - to add volume to the face.

Feet echoes throughout the room, Rinji's toys clatters together as he giggles at his own devices. She heard her mother gasp, and looks up to the face.

"Ka! Kaaa~!" Asuka cries out, reaching her paint covered hands out in the air, "Kuu! Kuu!"

Her mother says something, and Asuka catches something about 'naughty' and 'mess' - and was that something about 'creativeness'? Asuka giggles again, crowing at her picture. Her mother huffs in annoyance, and picks her child up. Her mother says something again, but this time in a softer tone, and Asuka preens at herself for the creation she had made.

* * *

"As'ke-tan!"

"Rin-tan!"

Her mother giggles at the sight, holding the twins on both sides of her. "No, Rinji-chan, it's A-su-ka, Asuka." With a small bounce, she readjusts them as she walks outside around their small garden.

"As'ka-tan!"

"Rin-ch-han!"

"As'ka-tan!"

"Rin-ch-han!"

* * *

"Kaa-chan!" The twins cry out, tugging at their mother's purple qipao dress.

"Yes, Asuka-chan, Rinji-chan?"

"Walk, walk!"

Their mother giggles, and she nods her head. "Yes, we can take a walk in the garden."

The twins giggle and let go of the qipao to dance around each other. With an excited squeal, Rinji grabs Asuka's hand and softly run out of the building, and into the arched entrance of the garden from their home. With bounding steps, the twins entered the garden, and Asuka wonders why it looks so Chinese. Wasn't her mother wearing a qipao - something that was created in China? But didn't they speak Japanese? She shakes her head, and giggles with her brother. She's still young - almost three - and she should probably wait a while before asking questions.

"Asuka-chan, Rinji-chan, be careful of the water." The mother sighs, a small smile on her face, trailing behind them languishly.

The call going almost unheard as the children skipped around the garden, jumping about in their path and enjoying the smell of flowers and plants that grew there. Asuka knows her mother loves gardening, because of the abundance of aprons that was scattered around the house and how dirty and splotched with dull mud stains they were.

Rinji's damp hands grabs onto Asuka's and he drags her to a small pond, and excitedly points to the koi-fish twisting and turning in it, the water reflecting the sunlight like milky white petals. The water reflects his happy face, hazel eyes bright and wide with mirth.

Asuka looks down too.

She stares.

And stares.

Ginger tufts of almost-red hair sticks out in all directions. Black eyes like obsidian against a white background. Pale golden-tan skin dusted with freckles and moles. Her face was round, with thin, young lips, small, narrow nose, and a constellation of freckles across her face, dusting over the bridge of her nose and cheeks and all the way up her forehead.

And her brother drags her off to the fruit tree, and she places a small(fake) smile on her(not hers) face.

Rinji squeals in delight as he spots a rather large bird in the tree, and pointing to it excitedly, his grip on her hand tightens, and she spots her(not hers) mother. Two pairs of hazel eyes look up at the bird, and the mother steadily sticks her arm out silently. The bird looks at her, then to the children, his beady eyes drifts over her to Rinji, and she feels the smile slowly slip. With one mighty heave of it's wings, the bird lifts itself from the branch it was perched on and glides down onto the older woman's outstretched arm, it's claws digging into her bicep. The bird appears to be much larger than what Asuka anticipated it to be, it had to be as large as she is! While the bird dwarfs her mother's arm, Rinji and Asuka both stare in awe.

"This is Takahiro," her mother explains, her free hand scratching the birds naked head. Asuka silently curses her lack of vision, because who would miss a vulture in a place like this?! "He is my personal summon, you will be getting your own once you are ready."

"Kaa-chan, what's a summon?" Rinji and Asuka chorus, and Asuka takes her hand out of his and let it fall to her side.

Their mother smiles sweetly, beige skin glowing in the sunlight - until a cloud passes over the sun, cooling the pressure and shading the land. "A summon is an animal that you make a contract with." She answers, then nods to the vulture balanced on her arm, and Asuka realizes how heavy the large bird must weigh, and wonders how her mother is able to carry it with one arm…. "You will be getting a contract and a main summon once you're older."

The older woman shooes them away, and Asuka and her brother both wanders around the garden for the next hour and a half.

* * *

Two tiny hands grips at the larger, rougher ones. The town was… dull. Sure, the sky was bright and clear and birds dancing and singing in the sky, but the town was almost as happy as a pile of shit on someone's white sofa. Well, as happy as the owner of that shit-stained sofa. What Asuka really noticed(if she noticed it at this stage, then something's seriously fucked up) was the starvation going on. Everyone was a either practically a skeleton or looked ready to kill someone.

As she, her brother, and her father walks along the dirt street, Asuka realizes what's going on. It clicks in her head like a light being turned on. If anything, it's a theory. One hundred percent theory, but she doesn't really care whether or not it's right. Well, it's actually more of a hypothesis, but she doesn't really care at the moment.

War. Because of the war, the economy is falling for her country, which means less imported goods and foods, which means less money, which means hunger and homelessness. She sees that she was born into a relatively rich family. That, or her family knew how to save money in case another war happened.

Did that mean wars happened often? Probably not, Maybe one war ended, and another came over here, ruined the already weak economy. Then again, this is all a hypothesis to her, she has no real knowledge as to where she is, and she isn't always the sharpest tool in the shed.

Her father tugs her arm, and she looks up at him, black eyes wide. His skin looks like fire in the sunlight, she realizes, and his eyes are as black as her, so she sees that she gets her looks from him. He's looking down at her, black eyes narrowed and a sheen of sweat at his red brows.

"Stop dwaddling, we are going to be late if you keep on slowing us down." He states, voice deep and rumbling and a kind that screams _don't-fuck-with-me-and-do-as-I-say_. Asuka swiftly nods her head, and lets him drag her around with a tight grip.

Honestly, she has no clue as to where they are going and why her father is taking them, it's always been their mother taking them places, even though it was always to a friends home or garden or picking out fruits or bird watching(she still has no idea what her mother needs a vulture for, though, couldn't they just use a regular pigeon or other tamable bird that wouldn't eat a deer alive? _Seriously_ , where would you find a domesticated vulture? _Where_?!).

Was it because she and Rinji were already six, and they had to learn to live with whatever their father did for a living? It seems reasonable to her, the town was poor as hell, probably didn't have any educational system at all, and probably has an ass-sucker as a king or president or whoever has the most power.

Instead, she is taken to a place with a lot of brats swarming about, and she thinks she's about to have an heart attack.

( _Caramel hair enters her vision, and she feels happy now, she feels proud now. Children run around them, greeting their parents, their happy, happy parents. The face smiles at her, says something, and laughs. She feels so happy now that she doesn't-_ )

"Asuka, pay attention." Her father's gruff voice takes her out of the once distant memory. "We are at the academy, now, so don't you two get into trouble. You are of clan blood and are expected to take pride in it, no matter how small and insignificant the Enkosugi may seem to the others."

Rinji coughs into his arm. "I think we'll like it," he rasps, and Asuka really wishes she could just help her brother somehow. "I think we could really use some friends."

A few months ago Rinji somehow got sick with the same thing he had years ago, back when they were still infants. Asuka really wishes that there was a cure or antibiotic of it, because she was getting really sick of having to hear his wet coughs at night or to see him faint from whatever was getting at him at the time.

Glancing up at her father, she sees that he seems thoroughly pissed. She had never seen him this way, and wonders what he's thinking about. Smiling, she looks over to Rinji, "Yeah, but at least make sure they know what they're in for. We don't want to be soft kittens for the pickin', right? We want to be the ones with the sharpest talons, hm?"

She looks up again to see the expression on her father's face, and is happy to see he is trying to smother a smirk. Or a smile, both of them are fine.

Her father takes them both into the building, and Asuka wonders why some children have unique hair colors. Was that _blue_? Who the hell does that!?

They pass through beige halls with cracked windows, poorly kept doors, door-less rooms, and a poorly kept garden. The air around the building screamed _'we're poor as shit, but we will still teach our children the things they need to survive'_ , and all the while Asuka has an air of indifference and intimidation(it was so easy mimicking her father) while her brother was all like _'Hi! I wanna be your friend! Ignore them and let's chat!'_.

No one came up to them.

They enter a large room, the air was stale and smells like sweat and heat, chairs are stationed around, scattered and bent and old, and people are swarming around each other like way back when Asuka still hadn't felt death and birth and could remember clearly what middle and high school was like. She can still remember a lot of things, but it's just that she really doesn't have enough time to dwell on the ancient shit that might bring her down into a depression. The past is the past, and she has to grow up and deal with it because she won't get through a life comparing everything to something that will never be.

They take their seats, in the middle of one of the surviving sections of chairs. Asuka looks up at the windows, orange light streams in, enhancing the dust particles the fluttered around, dancing around the people that passes by them. It seems so surreal to her, before she died she had terrible vision - could barely see ten feet ahead of her - and used glasses or contacts to help her see clearer.

Someone walks to the makeshift stage, which looked like it was made out of bamboo a few decades ago. The man looks older, strict, and maybe even brutal. Short black hair, green eyes(that she can see from this distance), narrow features, and a dark uniform. She can even see the gleam of a metal-plated headband that seems oddly familiar to her. He is also wearing a large grey scarf and an obvious grey flak jacket.

"Welcome to the academy," he starts, and Asuka is slightly intimidated by his tenor voice and obvious displeasure to be there. "We are here to preview everything that, as Kusagakure Shinobi and Kunoichi are taught, is very important to become an exceptional ninja."

Asuka pauses, and her breathing halts. What. The. Fuck.

Kusagakure? _Shinobi_? _NINJA_!?

She looks at her father, and is slightly apprehensive at the thought of what he does as a job.

Is he a ninja too? Is their _mother_ a ninja?

Suddenly she has an epiphany. That bird, the bird is what should have tipped her off, the summon-contractor ordeal, the fucking sixth sense. It wasn't that she was just born into a slightly crazy and metaphor-loving family, it's because of the fact that she's born into the _fucking Naruto-verse!_

Her brother coughs, and she looks over at him. He was just a child, no child should have to go through the shit that goes on in the background of the world that everyone loved back when she was alive. The man talks again, and she faintly understands what he's saying, but all she could think of was how much she must have screwed up in life to get here.

Was it because she could get really paranoid and never let anyone in her life?

* * *

 _I think this chapter is shit. My first real taste at a third person present-tense story, and I know all of my other story stink as fuck, but they aren't as shitty as this._

 _Kusagakure isn't really mentioned in Naruto, and the naruto-wiki turns my laptop to shit, so most of the research is all half-assed and probably incorrect. The pictures of them on Google are all vague and mostly OC's, so I think I'll either make something up for the reasoning behind what the Kusa-nin wore at the chunin-thingy in pre-shippuden or actually look some of it up._

 _If there are any OC of yours you wanna be seen in here then please comment! I don't care if it's by PMing or the comment section, I'll take them and place down their rightful owners down here in the Author's Note! :)_  
 _(^though be warn that I might change it's clothing and somethings about it if it seems too Mary Sue-ish)_


	3. One Feather - One of Multiple Plans

She's scared, she has to admit. It's not every day that you realize that you've been reincarnated, right? And it's not every day that you realize that you've been reincarnated into a universe that's just fiction.

She tugs at her ginger hair, her brother stands next to her while her father was behind them. She wasn't very pleased about what she just discovered, and - with gut-sinking feelings - she would have to make plans.

She knows the future, or past, or whatever time period she was pushed into. She knows that she'd have to make some sort of plans, one to either stay out of the way and let time flow the way it did in canon, or completely screw up the timeline until she couldn't recognize anything.

Asuka isn't a social person by default, and really never had much social interaction since she died.

But she also knows that because of the time she has left until the academy actually begins she can actually figure out which war she's in, and in essence where she stands in the timeline.

The man had said Kusagakure, so she was in the Village Hidden by the Grass, which means that it's either the Second or Third Shinobi World War, although she can't tell if she was born after the Third War, right before the Fourth Shinobi World War - which means she's dead as she was before she was born in this body.

Her brother coughs, and she glances over at him. He was something apart of her, they were twins - the only thing dividing them were the color of their eyes and hair. She wishes that he was like her, that he was thrown into a world where everything was supposed to be pure fiction. Asuka wasn't really interested in the Naruto-verse in her later years, but she was an absolute fan when she first discovered it, back when she was just becoming a teenager, and she knew enough to know how the Akatsuki was formed and for what reason and who actually led it.

But that wasn't enough, she needed to be strong, she needed to be strong to hold the information she held. In her old world, knowledge was power, but here the majority of people thought strength was power, and that's what made a difference between them and Sasori and Jiraiya and Orochimaru. Sure, Jiraiya and Orochimaru were powerful and had a large arsenal of jutsu's and combo's they could use, but Jiraiya was a spymaster for Konoha and dealt with predicting where the Akatsuki moved and went and who were associated with them, and Orochimaru used his spy-networks to get into the first chunin exams to get to Sasuke as it was shown on the series.

But Sasori was much, much different than them. He didn't have much of anything to use, his primary(only) technique was puppetry, if he didn't have his puppets he would be nothing, and that's how Sakura and Chiyo managed to get to him. Asuka thinks it's kind of stupid to do what he did, even as he had hundreds of puppets, they were bound to get broken in a fight that could last long enough. Even when she went into college she made sure she had something else to fall back on, like if she couldn't become a pastry chef, she would become an interior designer or sell homemade crafts like wood or bone jewelry.

And that was then, this is now. It would be useless trying to become a pastry chef considering how the people are living, how everything's getting increasingly pricey, and how she's in the middle of a war. Interior designing is out of the question, although the jewelry making that she did was using resources, and she could probably make a small amount of money from the now-recognized shinobi that passed through the village for food and water.

For some reason it makes her happy, to know that she could do something that she enjoyed when she wasn't known as Asuka. She remembers drawing that portrait on that one wall so many years ago. She was trying to remember one of her friend's face, but she got something that was similar to what her mother looks like, and it did intrigue her parents of how she managed to make something like that in the first place.

That wasn't even it to the end of her 'creativity'. Once her mother thought it was time for her and Rinji to learn how to read and write, she would doodle on the pages her mother had given her, drawing little swirls and plants and leaves and flowers.

She hears her brother sniff a few times, and looks over at him with her brows furrowed and concern glazing her eyes. It was still a problem, the sickness. She knew that she didn't know much about diseases, but now, considering where she is, it could be anything. And she hopes that it isn't anything with his chakra-system or pathways or whatever they're called, because it could mean that it would be harder and more dangerous for him to use his chakra.

She looks above at the cloudless sky, the birds nowhere to be seen, and the white light of the sun blinding as she admires the pale blue sky. She remembers her first mother once saying something about how the sky was like life, how it has it's rough days, it's bad days, it's good days, and she finds it completely ironic on how her mother usually stayed inside, never really seeing the sky unless it was through an open window or the occasional walks.

But now that she was born into a new body, one that can admire nature without needing glasses, she loves the sky. Especially when the clouds and birds were out, she could see vividly - each swirl and puff and shadow of the clouds, every brightly colored feather on a bird's back, every shadow the sun casted from far in the sky. It was magnificent, she doesn't have any difficulties seeing, and everything seems to pop out more than it used to, each color was it's own, every bug had it's own place on that person's arm, that pale oak wood had it's own place as the walls of every home in the district, that long grass and wheat had it's own place in the fields.

* * *

Asuka smiles up at her mother, her brother mimicking her. "Don't be sad," they say in sync, and hugs their mother's waist, "we'll be safe and sound."

Their mother sniffs, red eyes leaking, "I-I know, I just hoped that the war would have left us when you were old enough, I-I'm so sorry, Asuka-chan, Rinji-chan."

Asuka sighs, "So what 'bout the war? Rin-chan and I are still too young to know anything, right?"

"Yeah," her brother agrees, nodding his head, "we won't be goin' in the war any time soon."

"Not when we still don't know anything."

* * *

As their mother makes some dango in their kitchen, humming to a song as she and Rinji conversed with each other. Even as their topics switched periodically, one topic lasts longer than the others, and, even if Asuka wasn't complaining, it surprised her how… sheltered they were.

"Yeah, it must be so cool to be a shinobi!" Rinji chortles, picking at some lint off his sweater. "I mean, it'd be cool to do all of that exploring, but I think becoming a iryo-nin would be amazing!"

Asuka hums, nodding her head wisely, "I think that'd be cool, too. But I think I enjoyed when they demonstrated the… uh, yari's, I thought they were pretty cool too look at!" While she usually used wooden, harmless katana's and variant other weapons related to any sort of martial art, she never really got close to the Japanese spears, because she usually already had so much on her plate. It was majestic how their demonstrators demonstrated the usage of the weapon, and she was surprised at why she never got into it. Well, maybe it was because this was Kusagakure, and this was supposed to be an art of fiction, and she was supposed to be dead, but it may have been different than what it was back when she wasn't a child - when she was wearing the skin of another person, of another child, someone who hasn't even gone through pub-

She dreads the day of her second puberty. As if the first time wasn't embarrassing enough….

"Really? I thought that was cool too, but not as much as the healing process with chakra. I wonder what our chakra types are, though. It'd be cool to use some of those earth jutsu's they showed us."

Asuka hums again, and looks down at her red-brown sleeve, "That's cool. I don't know what type I'd wanna be, though."

The room was quiet again, the only sounds was the rustling of their mother's clothes as she prepared the dango's for them.

Their mother sighs happily, a plate with four stick of hanami-dango on a cheap, wooden plate. "Here you go, children. Please take one." She sits down in a seiza position next to Asuka, her purple qipao moving as she adjusted herself. Asuka and Rinji and their mother grab their own stick, one still sitting on the plate. Their mother sighs again, but it was more rueful. "I need to have a small talk with you." She admits slowly, hazel eyes sad and looking down, "It's about you two becoming shinobi. I know you all want to be strong, but I want you to know about… some side effects that most shinobi - during war - get, and how they can affect your relationship with your summons."

The children doesn't speak up, so she looks back up at them with a straight back, "Our summons have been passed down from generation to generation, and so has this speech. I know you two are still young, but please try and remember these words I am about to present you with." The children nods at the same time, and eat the top dango on the stick almost robotically. "Our summons are loyal, honest, and strong. Their personalities will be different than others, as they are their own bird, but as you and your summons get older, you will have to adapt to their personalities as they will to you." She pauses to let Rinji cough, a sad frown forming on her face. "Our summons are large scavenger birds, and they have been used mostly on the battlefield or scouting. Because they are large animals and are loyal to their contractors, they believe in strong self-preservation - if they believe a battle will get out of hand they will leave with their contractor, even against their contractors will. It has led to many… issues about our own loyalty to our village."

She takes a bite out of the hanami-dango, taking her time eating the ball. "The reason I'm telling you two this is because you will be receiving a young bird, one of which that will be your responsibility and summon."

The children are quiet, slowly taking in her words. After a few moments of silence, Rinji smiles.

"What kind of birds are we getting?"

Hazel eyes meet hazel, and Asuka silently notes that their eye shapes are almost the same. "Our summons aren't actually summons, like the snakes or hawks or falcons, but they have remained with our family for generations. We have vultures, in the wild they are thought to be extinct, but we have kept our summons as healthy as we kept ourselves."

Asuka is silent. She doesn't really like the concept of using her chakra, because if memory serves her right, she would have to sign a contract with her summon - or was that with the ones with the bosses? She isn't really too sure. After all, she didn't even know she had the capacity to carry chakra, she doesn't feel anything… different about anything.

She scoots closer to her mother, black eyes gleaming in excitement. "Really? What do they look like, kaa-chan?"

Her mother smirks, and scoots a little further away from the table. She nips at her thumb and flashes through a series of handsigns, grunting ' _kuchiyose-no-jutsu_ ' and a large plume of white smoke fluffs up into the air, revealing a large, black vulture. It glances at the two children, and looks back at the one who summoned it. With pride gleaming in her eyes, their mother chortles, "Takahiro, these are my children, I was just explaining it to them about summoning, care to explain some things about it?"

The large bird looks at their mother, almost lazily. It lets out this horrible, deep, chittering, screech before bobbing its pale head. "I would love too, Haruhi-chan."

The children scoot further away, eyes wide and to the point of shaking by that awful sound the bir-beast performed. The beast looks over at the children and wobbles over, not jumping on the table like Asuka thinks it would, but instead chose to nestle next to her, in between Rinji and her.

"So," it started, it's voice guttural and gravelly, startling the two again, "Haruhi-chan tells me that you two are going to get you own summons soon, is that true?"

Rinji shakily nods, but Asuka is still, a small frown tugging on her lips.

The vulture makes a weird cooing noise and nods it's head, "Well then, hatchlings, get ready for some exciting information on your summons…"

* * *

The information they learned was very… unique. Apparently they were somewhat like the Inuzuka, because they had a group of animals that they used as summons regularly for combats or other reasons such as infiltration or hunting. The bird - Takahiro - didn't say that, but Asuka remembers the Clan's dog summons and thought that it was pretty similar to what she was going through.

Well, is expected to go through.

She is expected to take care of a week old baby vulture until the day she or the bird dies.

Isn't that going to be a fun experience.

It takes her a few seconds to process the information, and another few seconds for her to actually understand what it meant. She honestly thinks it was cool for her to have a bird as a summon, especially if it's going to be in her care and responsibility, although she really doesn't know how to take care of birds. She used to have some canaries when she was younger, but they were eaten by the cats, and she's also sure there's a very fine line between songbirds and Old World vultures.

While she was somewhat amazed by the conceipt, her brother looks rather confused, his nose scrunching up a little.

She taps his knee with her knuckles, "Hey, you look a little confused, want me to explain?"

His hazel eyes look at her in an appreciative manner, and she smiles cheekily. He nods.

"Alright, so to cut it down the birds are our friends, basically we keep them around until they're fine on their own." She begins, retracting her arm and rubbing her hands together. "And because we made a contract with the the day we got them, we get to summon them when they're somewhere we're not."

Rinji nods brightly and hums, "I think I get it now, but how would we make a contract?"

Takahiro snorts, which to Asuka was a really hideous sniffling bark, and her mother laughs. "Rinji-chan, we said that in the beginning, remember? We sign the contract with our blood, and after that we sacrifice our blood to summon them to us."

The boy nods, and is content with the revision.


	4. A Feather and A Metaphorical Cat

Felines were agile, felines were majestic, felines were everything Asuka was not. She's tired, and really wanted to be left alone, but she knows that it's impossible considering where she is. She's already fell over something twice today, and is ready to just kick everything in her way in agitation.

It isn't her fault she fell out of bed in the morning with a killer headache.

She takes another breath, her hands wrapping around eachother restlessly. They sat next to each other closely, eyeing the other children. They seem like they would enjoy some ice cream, because they're all fuming hot in anger, she thinks bluntly.

"Oi! That's my seat!" One of the boys shouts, gaining the attention of the twins and almost the entire room. "Get off!"

Asuka snorts softly, nudging her brother. "Children are competitive, apparently."

Rinji laughs, and taps her shoulder, "Yeah, I think he'd have a better chance fighting a cat."

Asuka raises an eyebrow, and gives him a look, "Really?" She whispers, "I think that'd be too much, perhaps a small worm, or maybe a leaf."

The boy looks a little taller than the twins and has blonde hair and blue eyes, and Asuka is slightly not intimidated when he turns around to glare at her. "What're you lookin' at? Huh?"

She hums, pushing her hair over her shoulder to fiddle with it, "I'm looking at you, why?"

He sneers and crosses his arms over his chest, "I don't like people lookin' at me, so don't do it!"

Asuka snorts and looks at Rinji and they both share a look. "Why?" they both say, "Do you feel uncomfortable in your own skin? Or do you just like hearing your own voice?"

The boy opens his mouth but decides against it, favoring a grunt and an unhappy glare. The twins shares another look, smirking.

They sit like for a while, ten minutes if Asuka is correct, before the teacher - their sensei - snaps at them all to shut up. She's a little offended at the blunt and harsh voice, but is glad that the other children did as he said. The man looks worn and tired, ready to fall asleep, with dirty blonde hair and mustard yellow eyes. He's wearing a Kusagakure vest, which is light brown with long shoulder guards, thick neck guards, and several scroll pouches.

With a stern face, he starts his speech - although Asuka isn't really listening. She understands that he's talking about some basic rules and guidelines, but she really isn't interested in learning some of the most basic rules she had to follow back when she was still in school, back when she hadn't experienced death and rebirth. The man started talking about training, and Asuka engages in it a little bit more than she as before, but she was still out of it.

With disinterested black eyes, she lazily scans the room, counting the scores in the cheap, common brown wood. She wonders how they got there, but maybe she'll find out in a moment when her brother isn't nudging her knee with his. "Yes?" She whispers, and glances at him, noticing his navy blue sweater more so than his face.

"You look lost, want me to explain what he said?" Rinji asks, tilting his head.

"Nah," she shrugs, red hair falling over a shoulder, "I think I got most of the important things - you know, the studies, training, history, geology, and I think that's about it."

He chuckles and wraps an arm around her, bringing her in for a hug, "Silly, you forgot the survival."

She blinks owlishly at him, "Really? I thought that would've fit in with the geology and studies."

With shaking shoulders and an innocent look on his face, they both direct their attention back to their new sensei, who looks ready to quit his job, considering his flustered face and clenched fists. Uncontained whispers of all kinds were floating around the room, almost completely ignoring the annoyed older man. Asuka sighs and hopes that these kids will realize they are not meant for what's going on outside, in the real world. She knows that she's not meant for the outside world either, but it wouldn't hurt knowing _something_ , right? And she knows how much Rinji wants to become a iryo-nin, a ninja, a _shinobi_.

It's kind of disgruntling how much she would do for her brother, but she feels the need to be more involved in his life than she has in anyone else, she thinks it might be because they were twins, born only minutes apart, but she also knows that maybe it's because she knows that death can come at any moment and take anyone's breath away.

* * *

Their mother looks down, brown hair obscuring her face, and sighs. "Look, you've started school today, and so must your… clan training. The other children won't be going what you're going through, but they might be doing something similar."

The children nod their heads, sitting next to each other in their garden.

Their mother continues, "And, well, this is going to be difficult and everything because you're my first children I've ever had-" she laughs nervously and rubs her hands together, "-and, well, Shinji and I both have told each other that we'll keep on our traditions even though we're clearly in the middle of a war."

She babbles on some more, clutching her wrists in nervousness and agitation. "But because you're father's always out on missions and what-not, I'll be taking care of most of the training. I know almost all of the ceremonies for contracting you to your summon, but there's a ceremony that the manlier pair of the couple is supposed to do. I obviously know it, but it's tradition and tomorrow your father will be following said tradition."

With her hands in front of her and face set in determination, she lets out a loud wolf whistle, and after a pregnant pause, they all heard a familiar guttural screech. Their heads all look up, and they see Takahiro gliding in the air with two, smaller birds fluttering behind him. They circle around a few times and safely hop their way on the ground.

With the birds now standing next to the sitting children, the older woman goes on about the health and care of the birds. Asuka is awed by the creatures, and compared to the older bird they are very small, almost to his thigh.

"-And usually they eat almost anything, but they like commonly like deer-"

But while they are incredibly small, they still have a dagger as a beak. They can easily cut through skin and probably bone. Well, that was a reason why they can be involved in battles, right? Even if they're the size of your fist, they still could probably take out a fully grown man with a bite to the throat.

Their mother finishes her speech with how the birds could grow in size determining how much chakra they put in it, but that they should wait until their birds are fully grown. "Now," she claps her hands together, a large smile growing on her face, "To the naming ceremony. Rinji-chan, please come here."

Her brother obeys and scoots closer to her, their mother takes his hands and envelope them between hers, "Enkosugi Rinji, do you wish to take Masayoshi as your eternal summon, to take care of him as your brother, and to treat him as such." Rinji nods, smiling a full set of teeth. Their mother grabs one of the hatchlings, it's feathers a softer brown than the other one, and hands the bird to him. "Then, from now on, Masayoshi is your responsibility, your right hand, and your partner. Take care of him."

Her mother then shoos him away, silently telling him to get to know Masayoshi. Then Asuka shyly scoots forward to her mother, a blush creeping on her face. Her mother looks at her with a bright smile, and takes her hands with her own warmer hands. "Enkosugi Asuka, do you wish to take Ima as your eternal summon, to take care of her as your sister, and to treat her as such." She shyly nods with a small smile, looking over at the baby bird as her mother hands her to her own hands. The baby bird, the hatchling, Ima, chirps something, and Takahiro bobs his head, softly crowing something back to her. "Then, from now on, Ima is your responsibility, your right hand, and your partner. Take care of her."

The brown haired woman shoos her away like the way she did with Rinji, though Asuka moves the other direction than what her twin took, softly moving with the surprisingly light bird in her hands.

"I'm Asuka." She finally mutters, sitting next to one of the few ponds in the garden.

"I-I-Ima!" The baby bird chirps, its voice is relatively high pitched but still held that chittering stutter Takahiro had, although it was much more prominent in her speech. Maybe it was because she was still young?

"So," Asuka says softly after a short moment, "what do you... like to eat?"

The bird is silent for a moment, then she bobs her head, "Fox-xes, mice."

Ima's speech was off, cut and thick with with an unknown accent, but it isn't like Asuka cares, she thought she'd have to give the bird language lessons, considering how Akamaru was in the original timeline. But at least it was something she could start with, because she knew she was _horrendous_ at starting something that she didn't know how to begin.

"So, what do you like to do? I like to cook." That's good, start a conversation with a bird, why don't you.

"I-I-I like Masayoshi, Takahiro, and flying." The bird says, readjusting herself in Asuka's palm. "And learning." She says after a moment of thought.

Asuka hums and nods her head, "That's good. I like my brother too. And my mother. I never really see much of my father, but I think he's cool."

Ima nods her head jerkily, her body following the movements, and Asuka finally think she has another friend that isn't her brother.

* * *

The first time they practice with their chakra is when they start chakra theory in school, almost a week and a half since the first day of school. While Rinji seems elated for the early practice, Asuka is beginning to become more and more aware of what might be the worst epiphany of her life. The headaches were minor, though they did get annoying after a while, and she was starting to get really pissed at the annoying buzzing around and inside her head.

"To start off with chakra practice, I want you to hold one of these leaves on your forehead or the downside of a limb." Her mother starts, because it was so important they had to know what their chakra control was. The brunette hands them both half a large leaf, because almost all of the leaves and trees around in Kusa were ridiculously large and abnormal. Maybe it was because of how some type of chakra affected the growth of the plants and animals hundreds and thousands of years ago.

Although they could use some of the fallen leaves on the ground in the garden, they were much more smaller than the ones from wherever their mother got them.

Rinji coughs into his arm and clears his throat, and their mother looks worriedly at him before continuing.

"So now I want you two to feel for your chakra, like meditating. It'll feel different from person to person, but you should feel a tugging sensation in the center of your gut. That would be the center of your chakra system. Once you've felt your chakra, I want you to use a leaf and try to attach it to your forehead or underside of a limb." Her mother begins to explain, waving her hands around for a more visual idea of what she was saying. "Sometimes it'll be easier for people to control their chakra than others, so don't worry if it gets annoying that you can't get a hold of the chakra at first, you can train your body to handle its chakra so you don't have to waste it using a jutsu or something."

Asuka and Rinji both nod, smiles on their faces and obediently try to find their chakra source by relaxing and closing their eyes respectively. Their mother places in tips every so often, and compliments them when she feels their chakra's expanding and deflating as they try to get a grasp on it. Their mother thinks that this is going on good right now, a lot better than she had expected, though her daughters chakra signature seems a little… off, it has an underlining of something that wasn't natural, or natural, and it burnt her nose from trying to sense it.

The three of them are like that for almost and hour, both of the twins clearly getting frustrated by the energy and time they were using for the activity.

Even as Asuka thinks it's really important to know how to utilize the chakra that she has been reborn with, she really doesn't feel the motivation pushing her along like Rinji. This is like giving her some new awesome powers that no one has ever heard of, like slapping her in the face with something she really doesn't need or want but might be something extremely significant for survival in a few years.

Smarting, Asuka growls angrily, her hands in tight fists, "As interesting as it sounds, I think it's very, very _stupid_!" She whines in a childish way, her body tense and face frowning and scrunched up.

"At least it's good for us, right Kaa-chan?" Rinji asks, wide, innocent eyes looking towards their mother expectantly. His tiny hands are on Asuka's, and she thinks that it's ridiculous that she's so small, because it was really fun being tall.

"Yes," their mother answers with the nod of her head, straight, muddy brown hair pushed over a shoulder. "It's really important to have control over your chakra, even civilians need a year or two so their chakra doesn't go haywire."

The twins are silent for a moment, sharing a look that makes their mother smirk with the tilt of the side of her lips, "Really?" They chorus, "I didn't know even civilians had to know how to do what shinobi had to do."

And their mother snorts and diverts her eyes away from them, "Yeah, I think it wouldn't be fun puking everything you ate until you have literally nothing in your stomach and die from starvation."

Asuka thinks Rinji and hers face must have been comical, because their mother starts laughing, with her hand splayed out to cover her mouth and bent over at the waist from the amusement she's seeing. Asuka looks at her brother and smiles brightfully and nudges his arm with her elbow. He looks at her, hazel eyes shining with mirth, and smiles back at her. They let their mother laugh for a few moments before Asuka nudges Rinju again with her elbow again and gives him a look.

"Kaa-chan, is that true?" He asks with large, innocent eyes, effectively cutting a snort from his sister.

"Sadly." Their mother confirms, smothering out her smile and standing straight again. "Come on, let's go inside. I want to show you how to make some delicious hanami dango."

They laugh, and the twins run ahead of the brunette. Giggling, Asuka hops in front of Rinji, facing him, and trips over a loose pebble. She lands with her elbows behind her, scraped and bleeding. She winces and shakily gets up and feels the tears pricking her eyes, and internally curses her small baby body for it's stupid weakness.

* * *

 _Takahiro, Masayoshi, and Ima are now introduced! yay :)_

 _I tried making a introduction, but failed miserably. I just wanted to get across that Asuka is not graceful in any means, hence the last part, although it will sorta-maybe affect the next chapter and probably-sorta bring out some character traits._

 _I still have absolutely how old I'm going to make Asuka compared to some other the other major character involved in the Third Shinobi World War, like Kakashi and co. and I'm sure that the war starts when Kakashi is, like, eight or something, but that's in Konoha's terms, so this is slightly different than canon._


	5. A Feather and A Realization

Her mornings are pretty uneventful, especially so with Masayoshi and Ima now in the family. It usually starts like this; wake up along with Rinji, get dressed, eat a small breakfast usually consisting of a lot of sweet basil and rice and a few apple slices, brush hair and teeth, preen at their birds, and then walk to the academy with their mother or father. It's a sweet life, close knit and happy. Asuka thinks that she likes this part of her life better than her previous one, the one that forced her into early independency and crushed almost all of her hopes of the future.

But of course it didn't really outline anything in her rather short life, only that it got somewhat annoying when people wouldn't understand her side of a conflict because of her ever changing speech patterns and rather aggressive impression that wouldn't leave until the middle of high school. She did have friends though, loyal ones that understood her and enjoyed her presence, and went through thick and thin with her and got to see who she really was and not what she looked like she was. All in all, she had some really bad social experiences.

Rinji yawns into his bare arm, "I can't wait to tell Hanano-chan about what we learned, even if we didn't really do much."

Asuka nods her head and hums in agreement, walking next to him with their mother on her other side. "It was exhausting but still cool," she smiles, "I wanna try it again tonight. I'm not sure if we're still doing chakra theories or not, but I'd like to try it again at home, if it's alright."

Their mother nods her head with a small smile, and Asuka grins at her, "Yes, you two can practice after school, as long as I'm there with you."

They nod their head happily, smiling.

* * *

Asuka really hates that kid, the loud, brash, stupidly prideful, idiotic, brat. Eton blue eyes and a rather tanned face shoved into hers is what is making her think such things. Usually she doesn't get involved in such situations in which an imbecile is spewing stupid, half-assed, forgettable, and pointless lies, but then again, she didn't know scraped elbows are a sign of major and long-lasting weakness and patheticness.

"-And it's important to be steady and graceful and quick on your feet-"

Because it's also important to be raised in such a way where _must_ know how to use your feet, right? And that you must _not_ show any weakness such as _falling_.

"-So what makes you so important that you can bring a _beast_ like yours here?"

Ima squeaks and flutters her wings on her perch on Asuka's head. "Beast I not!" She crows, accent thickened in anger, "Dumb beast you are!"

The blonde growls in frustration while Asuka winces at the claws being dug into her skull. "Ima, don't listen to things like him," she says, "he's not important in our lives."

"I _am_ important you-you _idiot_!"

"No, not to me you're not."

He lets out a sound that sounds like an aggravated snort and stomps away to his little group of friends, and a heartbeat later Rinji enters the room. He looks around with a curious gaze before looking at his sister, the same sister who was silently fuming at the blond. He walks towards her, a concerned look on his face.

"So what bit your rear when I was gone?" He asks her, sliding the chair out for him to sit down, not even bothering to scoot closer to the table.

Asuka snorts, "That stupid, annoying, blond brat was talking bad things about Ima and the fall I had yesterday."

He sighs, "I don't understand why the other children are so… happy, or, um, bubbly and active.

"Yeah," she says, "Home's always quiet, so maybe theirs isn't. Like when we started training at home, maybe it's different than us."

Rinji nods his head and opens his mouth to speak, but to be interrupted by their sensei snapping at them to get to their seats. Rinji sighs and scoots closer to the table, Masayoshi cuddling to his neck as he tries to stay attached on his shoulder for dear life.

* * *

Their day was the same as any other, listen to their teacher bark out information like a military sergeant, ready to send out any misbehaving children at the smallest of things. Well, maybe it was like being in the military, or bootcamp, because Kusa _is_ acting as the rope in a game of tug-of-war between Konohagakure and Iwagakure, and there are multiple areas of which are the playing grounds. Asuka is kind of sad that she wasn't born in a more popular country or village, one she knows what they specialize in, but that wouldn't be life, and she sort of doesn't want to be born in Kiri or Suna or Konoha( _especially_ Konoha, that place is, like, where the devil lives) or any other place because it's either a place where children kill each other to pass an exam or too hot all the time or consists of large and prominent clans or anything else she hasn't thinked of yet that might be important in playing a role in the original timeline.

And she's now wondering if ice cream exists here. Or anywhere, really. She hasn't had much time to consider what they have and what they don't have in this world, and she wonders if it's possible to start baking again. Well, something her mother teaches her, it would be weird if she starts making unknown pastries when she barely knows how to make dango.

When they start heading home she and Ima are mad, while Rinji and Masayoshi look amused. It would have been a good day if that insufferable, intolerable, stuck-up, self-righteous, brat hadn't interfered with their meditating, saying that their _little birdies were too unbearable to meditate with because they smell like death_. It was his damned fault that he sat next to the twins, and she thinks that he should have shut his trap after choosing his position next to them.

But to their mother it seems that an angry Asuka and an amused Rinji is a sight to see, because she seems to be excited at the attitude her children were emitting.

"-And the _way_ he said it! Like he wanted us to know how-how he hated us!"

Rinji nods his head in agreement, "Yeah, like he thinks he's more important than us."

Their mother hums, "What's his name? Maybe I know his parents."

The children look at each other with quizzical looks, then they frown. "I don't think we ever got a name." Rinji whines, withering under Asuka's detached frown.

Their mother laughs, "Well, there's nothing I can do with that. Come on, I think Shinji is home already."

Rinji and Asuka brighten up considerably, cheering and speeding home with their mother right behind them.

* * *

"So I see they are doing good in the academy." Their father states the moment their mother enters the home, sandals off and a smile present on her face.

"Yes," she says, "even Masayoshi and Ima are doing good. I heard that Ima blurted out an answer in the middle of class for an exam or something."

"They are already teaching math?" their father asks, black eyes looking over at them and their birds.

"Ye-yes!" Masayoshi chirps, "Ma-math and ge-ge-geology."

Ima makes a purring sound on top of Asuka's head, her claws digging into her scalp. Asuka thinks she might be getting used to the claws on her head. And she's sure that it's not healthy.

"Good," their father tells them, "as long as they can be safe if they ever go into the battlefiel-"

"They won't." their mother snaps, interrupting him, brown eyes blazing and a complete three-sixty from the moment prior, "The mock-war will be ending soon, you should know that will."

"No, it is not certain, you should know that of all people, Haruhi." he shoots back, and the children stand there, looking at the quarrel going on before their eyes. "The Kusagakure government is doing little to get rid of those Konohagakure and Iwagakure ninja's, they do nothing but cause damage to our lands and economically destroy us!"

"But the fighting has been getting sparser, the last reported battle has been almost a month ago," their mother says, and the twins share a look then glance back at their parents. "And it's not like it's going to turn into an actual war, it'd cost too much and destroy the economic standing of all of the nations! Their respected Kage's should know that it'd be very stupid to wage war _now_ of all times!"

Their father breathes in, eyebrows furrowed and angry. He turns to his children, "Rinji, Asuka, go outside, or somewhere not here. This is a talk between your mother and I."

The children look at each other, then back to their father. He stares at them, while their mother grits her teeth silently. Rinji looks at his sister then to the door, and turns the other way towards the garden with Asuka following behind him.

Asuka decides that even through war parents still fight, even though she's pretty sure war is worse than debt. A lot worse. What could be worse than war? Who knows. She sits down next to a pond close to the garden entrance, the one next to a small, potted bonsai tree she has been taking care of with her mother. She hears her twin moving behind her, the rustling of clothes and the friction between his sandals and the paths.

"What do you think that was about?" He asks her, squatting down next to her, hands hanging over his knees.

"No," she mutters, twisting her head to look at him, "but I think they're correct, a few days ago I heard one of the girls - the one with short black hair - talk about losing an uncle last week to a sk-skirmish or something. She said that she was close to him, and that she misses him."

"It must be sad to lose something you're close with." He agrees, nodding his head and looking at the pond.

She hums, and places her hands next to her thighs and readjusts herself, looking at a tree behind them which was holding Ima and Masayoshi. The two birds were pecking at each others side, shaking their heads of loose feathers. They were siblings like them. Hell, she could consider those two birds' twins like she and Rinji is. "We're too young to know what's going on, and we also know too little about the war. I don't think we have much of a right to talk about the war at this stage."

He nods his head, as the conversation ends there. Rinji settles himself down next to her and pinches her elbow. She spazzes and hits him on the chest with a loud _clap_.

"Bastard, that was my elbow!" She hisses, eyes flashing curling away from him, trying to make her elbows apart of her torso.

"That's the point," he smirks, and she bares her teeth at him, "you seemed down so I made you feel something that wasn't down."

"I'm sure feeling pain is being down." She mutters, looking at him from under her shamefully copper eyelashes.

"No, it's a high, like when you eat too much dango." He says brightly, sticking his chin up in the air audaciously.

She snorts and faces the other way, shuffling on her butt to make sure he sees her back. "I am not facing your general direction until I feel you are forgiven for your cocky attitude. _That seriously hurt, nii-chan_!"

She hears him laugh, and then feels a tugging sensation on her head. She feels him moving her hair around, combing it with his fingers, and separating it into large chunks. She lets him continue the action, feeling him tighten it around the back of her head, her hair being pulled in multiple directions, the movements soothing and comfortable.

"How do you know how to do that?" Asuka asks him, understanding what he was doing.

"I don't know." He admits, the braid almost completed, "I've seen a few of the girls doing it to each other in the classrooms, though. I also… I also remember doing the actions… from somewhere, if that helps."

She smiles, remembering the actions as well. Maybe because they were twins they shared some of her memories from her past life, and maybe he got stuck with a few of the hair styling she had done with her friends. She hums, and feels him finishing the braid, the weight of it falling to the middle of her back, brushing over it as she moves around to face him. He is smiling.

"So I'm forgiven?"

"No," she says in a sweet voice, "you just deserve a hug. Come here."

She brings him in for a hug, and he hugs her back. They separate and grin at each other. " _You're the best_." They both say.

* * *

 _Well, who the hell's Hanano? And since when did I clarify that Rinji's the older twin? Hanano should appear in the next chapter, even though I still don't know what to do with her. I realized that I never said who's the older of the two, so I decided to make Rinji the older twin._

 _Meh, didn't turn out the way I wanted, but at least I got the point out that what's his face has a complex about being ignored and not important and that the twins care about each other._

 _Also, those names she called the blondy! Speech patterns can come in many different forms, like talking fast or slow or pauses in the middle of sentences or an accent or stuttering or some verbal ticks like humming after a sentence or two or what ever Deidara does... Yeah. So I decided to be an ass and have Asuka's speech patterns as the humming before a sentence or whenever she's aggravated she calls the person a handful of slurs and mean stuff._

 _Actually, it might be fun to do a chapter on Deidara, there would be some many 'yeah's after sentences it'd be ridiculous._


	6. A feather and A Name

"Why are you even here? You can't even reach your chakra!"

Asuka snorts. "You can't reach your's either, _Toshiyuki_."

His eyes widen, and she snorts again. "It's also not fair that you pick on me when Rin-chan's not around. Why is that? You think he'll beat you up, right?"

Toshiyuki sputters, and instantly denies it. Rinji enters the room again, and Asuka smiles at him. The blond next to her clenches his fists and leaves with a snarl.

"So," her brother begins, suddenly appearing next to her, "what was that about?"

Asuka hums, "I don't know. How're you and Hanano?"

"Ehh, she still thinks that I need to be in my assigned room more often, says it's bad if I'm ever late."

Asuka snorts, "Her class is, like, right next to ours, how could you be late?"

"I don't know." He mutters, and their conversation dies there.

They sit there, unmoving, watching their summons squeak and bark at each other. It is a cute sight, seeing two baby vultures the size of a football pushing each other around on the limited space they have, but Asuka thinks that it is a wild sight, and wonders if she'll ever see something like this again - especially when they're growing up so fast(and almost unnaturally, but when was chakra unnatural?). The side of her lip twitches, and she sees her ginger hair flop down in front of her face. Sighing, she pushes it back behind her ear.

Their sensei enters the moment the last kid walks through the door, and grunts out his usual ' _Shut up and sit down._ ' He glares down at them all, like the boot-camp supervisor he thinks he is. He clears his throat. "Today we will start with our chakra theory." He starts, getting straight to the point, "When I deem you _all_ fit do start your chakra manipulation, I will say so. Now, who can tell me what the uses of chakra manipulation are and why they are important."

Someone raises their hand, and Asuka's mind's eye tells her it's the only girl to have a crush on that blond stuck-up bastard Toshiyuki. She thinks her name is Momo, and she wonders how _peachy_ the name is to her blonde-almost-white hair and chocolate eyes. Their sensei grunts(seriously, that dude could have a damned conversation consisting of grunts) and she speaks in her over-confident, rather low voice, "The uses for chakra manipulation can vary, such as for offensive or defensive fighting or even healing." Rinji smiles next to her, and she barely catches it at the side of her eye. "Manipulation is important because it determines the amount of chakra you use when you use an technique or general use of chakra. It's also called chakra control in other places, but are basically the same thing."

"Good," he says, and goes on about the importance of finding and controlling their chakra from within, because apparently chakra can be harmful to children if they use a wrong method to draw into their reserves.

They are currently in a war where the soldiers are children, why are they even starting out chakra exercises when they are still in their first year of school? Are they _that_ desperate? Asuka doesn't know much about the Third Shinobi War, but she knows enough that is starts with Konohagakure and Iwagakure fighting over something in Kusagakure, while tensions were high in Kirigakure over something with Iwagakure, while somehow Sunagakure got into the fray with their neighbors and it all gets into a mess that they decided to call a war. From what Asuka could gather on it was that basically everyone wants what everyone can not have, like land or trading routs or money.

What they needed was a platform, a place to start and end and know their boundaries, but Shinobi nations are apparently not the kind of people to know if lines are blurred or fine - _considering how the Third Hokage dealt with his old two-timer pedophile of a friend Danzou and the massacre and almost everything in his long life_. It should be simple, you stay on your lands, we stay on ours. But, obviously, politics and greedy hags and geezers have to get in the way and screw everyone and everything over with an oversimplification of what they want and brutally blur the lines between politics and a general piss-party of wrinkly, pale, greying and withered old people trying to get into a position wher-

"-me how you should speak in a political confrontation." their sensei says, while Asuka looks down and sees Ima pecking her way up her arm, thin claws splintering skin to make shallow cuts, though not enough for her to bleed. The girl looks up at their brunnette sensei, because that is what she is, a girl, weak and frail and not ready for this lifestyle and Lady Luck's sense of humor. If she had actually stayed dead, maybe _Asuka_ wouldn't be here, maybe _Asuka_ would have her own brand new clean soul to be wasted on this life. It has been politics this and politics that for the past- since _forever_.

She is dimly aware of someone somewhere behind her raise their hand, and answers it with something about always having ears open and ready to memorize names and faces and situations.

She sort of wants to understand the concept of 'all's fair in love and war', she knows she has heard her mother saying it once. One of her mother's, at least. She doesn't remember. Is it that you will find something in the figure of love out of something as horrible as war? Or was it that people will get closer to each other once they realize how much value a life has? Was it that no matter how much you fight it might get better and-

What _is_ she _doing_? Contemplating something she is _too young_ to understand, to try and make sense of something that she is not sure even exists around here? She _wants_ to change the world, show them that even through the toughest part of their lives that they can still change for the better, to do something that wouldn't hurt the world at large. She knows that some people are scared by what they have seen, that sometimes it doesn't leave, that sometimes it impacts their lives forever.

But when was she a psychologist? She was a damned pastry chef if training, for her heart's sake!

-well, she _has_ have read a few psychology books on various things, like how parenting-

That is irrelevant now.

Wait, why is everyone laughing?

She turns around to face her brother, who was trying to keep Masayoshi on his head while laughing at the same time, his tanned arm keeping the bird in place while the other arm covered his mouth. Their eyes meet, and she gives him a questioning look, eyebrows raised. Rinji nearly doubles over, grinning behind his hand while trying to keep the pale bird perched on top of him.

"What?" She whispers, looking behind her to glance at a dark haired boy behind her who was snickering. Rinji snorts.

"You dozed off." He answers, "Sensei tried to ask you a question, but you didn't answer. He left to get water or something to get you out of it, but you still didn't come back."

Asuka looks at him, eyes wide and finally feeling the dampness of her hair and clothes. "Oh." She mutters. "I- uh- I think that was kind of- sorry?" She pushes away some damp hair out of her face, tugging it to the back of her head.

He nods, "He's behind you now."

Asuka grimaces, and faces the man behind her. His face is set and dark, his brown eyes narrow and lips in a straight line.

"Ah."

* * *

They are in the garden when their mother explains chakra nature. It is a nice, warm day, cool breezes and fluffy, white clouds dotting the sky. She tells the twins that everyone is different. Different chakra signals, different jutsu style, different chakra nature. They have already gone over the basics in the academy; katon, doton, suiton, futon, and raiton. But there is always more than what is seen - the various jutsu's one could perform, the chakra frequency in which the user uses, the amount of chakra the user has, and how well the users chakra manipulation is.

It's gets pretty complex after that, though. Kusagakure is a smaller nation, and currently the battlegrounds for two of the larger countries, so she think's is should be expected that they are poor and lacking various supplies - both important and not. They can't afford much, but do with what they have, like using old kunai and shuriken for practice, or having to somehow integrating work with shinobi techniques to keep their skills sure and ready. It's really… uncomfortable when she thinks about how Konoha and the other larger nations look compared to the smaller ones, are they feeding their civilians? _Do_ they have civilians? What do they do if they have invasions? _Do_ they have invasions?

She knows they are weird questions, but she has been hearing about how some countries don't treat their civilians well, and that some don't even _have_ them, like they're all training their civilians for the battles and the upcoming war. She knows Kusagakure isn't doing that, but their civilians are not doing as good as the shinobi are, they can't exactly protect themselves from the random outbursts of foreign shinobi, and there are only so many occupations one could be in the war.

Invasion is a whole different level.

The larger nations have enough support from their large military force that it's almost nothing to get rid of them, while smaller nations don't get much help from themselves and need to request help from one of the great nations for help, which costs money that they might need.

But that isn't what's going on, is it?

Their mother smirks above them, her hands resting above her purple clothed hips. "You children have that down and memorized, right?" she says, "Now, I want to see how far you are with your chakra manipulation, but we're not meditating this time. This time you are going to stick leaves on your forehead, like I said you could do not long ago."

* * *

 _The last week and a half have been a complete mess of sickness, birthdays, and sleep. I won't be able to get to writing anything for about the next three or four days, so either expect a late chapter or a short chapter._

 _Sorry if this was short, I'm pretty busy tomorrow, so here this is._

 _Asuka is finally working how things work out in Kusagakure and the other smaller nations and as well with chakra and the war. I think she might not like what occupation she's going into, but she feels responsible for Rinji so she's idly following whatever he does. I feel that she might confront Hanano(I just realized I didn't actually introduce her, so... yeah) to see if she's 'the one' for her brother._

 _I still don't know how Rinji met Hanano, because I don't think that a nation playing the playground for two elementary schools would exactly waste and hour for something that absurd when there's, like, three hours of 'p.h.' for whatever the hell they do._

 _I still have no idea what I did with the chakra situation. They are **six** , for all things sexy, and I know that some start off earlier than others, but realize what happened in the last chapter that their parents don't want them in the war to begin with, and have you ever tried using something that you've never seen or heard of before?_

 _It's like the rise of technology, half the people didn't know shit about it and thought that it was going to kill then in a year or so._

 _Except that chakra is always with them, and it's literally attached to them, and it could probably dictate their life._


End file.
